I was chatting to a friend after work tonight and doing the usual procrastination about things. to get me motivated (and because he’s mean) he set a challenge – to take the best photo I could in the garden in the next 10 minutes.

It’s actually quite tough to work under a time constraint. I guess it’s something professional photographers deal with – that knockout punch only lands once, that couple get married only once (we hope). As an amateur, if I miss the shot, it’s a pain, but nobody gets sued.

Anyway. As I grabbed my camera, I suddenly realised how constraining 10 minutes actually was. Realistically I needed to take one lens. I then realised I had to pick my shot as well – I could take a lot of shots quickly, but since I’d to pick a final choice as well, I had to draw a line so I had to get the shots I took right….first time.

I spent 6 minutes in the garden. I took 8 pictures. I then spent 2 minutes uploading and another 2 picking and tweaking my shot.

This is it…

As challenges go, it’s good fun to try. I guess repeating it will help focus your mind on the shot, but in future I’d allow as much time as you want for post processing if nothing else!

I’d always wanted to see how hard it is to catch a clay pigeon exploding in mid flight.

(f/10, 1/250sec, 135mm, ISO-400)

Bloody difficult. That’s how hard it is.

Reckon my failings here were the low shutter speed, possibly compounded by poor aperture choice.

Sadly the day I tried it, the weather was pretty dull and grey. Added to that, the lens was never going to be able to track and focus on the clay. I ended up pre-focusing at roughly the range I thought the clay would get hit, then tracking it from the launcher and zooming in on it as I went.

I think I maybe fired 30 or 40 shots trying to get something like this. Out of the set I have 3 where the clay is obviously hit.

Needless to say, it helps if the guys shooting at the clays is competent and hits them more often than not.